Brazil is the ninth largest phonographic market in the world according to the latest IFPI report, despite the fact that the revenue from recorded music sales has decreased by 58 percent since 2000. However, the Brazilian market for recorded music is more or less stable for six years now due to relatively high music video sales and the considerable growth of the digital music segment. Thus, the digital music sales have increased by 82.2 percent from BRL 24.3m to BRL 136.7m with music streaming playing an increasingly important role in the sales mix. In the following I highlight the Brazilian recorded music market by figures reported by the Associação Brasileira dos Produtores de Discos (ABPD).

Compared to other markets, the world’s second largest recorded music market is very different – at least in respect to digitization. Whereas the digital music segment is booming in other large markets, it is shrinking in Japan according to the latest report of the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ). In 2013, the total digital music sales were ¥ 41bn (EUR 290m) compared to ¥ 54bn (EUR 383m) a year before – a drop of 23 percent. The main reason for this surprising decrease is a shrinking mobile music market that lost 56.7 percent of its volume from 2012 to 2013. The drop was even more dramatic if we look back to 2008, when mobile music sales accounted for ¥ 79.9bn (EUR 566.0m) – fivefold in value than in 2013. The main driver for the sales drop was not – as might be supposed – the shrinking market for mastertones and ringback tunes, but tremendously falling single track download sales on mobile phones. Whereas mastertones and ringback tunes sales decreased by 75.9 percent and ¥ -21.8bn (EUR -154.4m) respectively from 2008 to 2013, the decline of mobile single tracks download sales was even more severe with 83.7 percent and ¥ -39.9bn (EUR -282.6m) respectively in the same period. We have to take into consideration, however, that RIAJ does not count downloads from smartphones and tablets as mobile music downloads, but as desktop downloads from the Internet, which strongly increased in the past few years. The value of single track downloads on the Internet was ¥ 14.8bn (EUR 104.8m) in 2013and Internet album download sales were at ¥ 14.8bn (EUR 104.8m) resulting in a growth of both segments of about 150 percent compared to 2008. Since the current value of Internet music downloads is much lower than the former volume of the mobile music segment, the total digital music sales have decreased in the past five years. In addition, the Japanese music streaming market is still underdeveloped. Spotify is expected to launch its service this year and other streaming services still evaluate the market potential in Japan.

Since the physical recorded music market in Japan also declines, the total music sales has been falling for more than a decade. RIAJ, however, does not report sales figures for physical music formats, but production values. Thus, we cannot assess the total music sales for Japan, but only the overall production value of CDs, vinyl discs and other physical formats such as music cassettes, SACDs and music DVDs. Thus, we can observe that the production value of physical music carriers has nearly halved since 2000.

The Japanese recorded music market, thus, is characterised by particularities which will be highlighted in the following analysis.

The question if streaming is the next big thing for the music industry will be eventually answered by the music consumers. Several studies were conducted in past few years – most of them commissioned by music industry bodies – to assess the future potential of music streaming. It is essential for music streaming services and the copyright holders (labels and music publishers) if consumers are aware of streaming services, if they are using them frequently and if they are prepared to convert from Freemium to subscription models. Therefore the results of the studies are important indicators for the future development of the music industry. Although they provide different and even contradictory results – due to a different methodology – they help us nevertheless to understand music consumption behaviour in the digital age. In the following I would like to review some of the studies published in the past three years.

After years of recession optimism is back in the phonographic industry. In the current Recording Industry in Numbers by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI 2013) the first but small increase of 0.9 percent in global recorded music sales were reported since 1999.The decreases in CD sales and in other physical formats could be compensated by increases in digital music sales. The revenue streams of music streaming services seem to play a crucial role in the recovery. Spotify, Deezer & Co. report annually growing number of users, which makes streaming the fastest growing segment in the phonographic market.

In a series of blog posts entitled “Is Streaming the ‘Next Big Thing’?” I would like to highlight the boom of music streaming services and their business models. But I also ask whether and how labels and publishers as well as artists benefit from the growing streaming music market. In part 1 the development of the digital music market in different countries with special regard to the music streaming market is analysed in detail.

It’s now the third time that Will Page and Chris Carey from PRS for Music added up the UK music industry. The main result is that total UK music revenues fell 4.8 percent to £3.775bn in 2010 compared to £3.964bn the previous year. This figure includes the retail value of recorded music (-7.9% to £1.237bn) as reported by the British recorded music industry body (BPI), the estimated revenue of live music (-6.8% to £1.480bn), the adjusted collections by PRS for Music (-1.3% to £0.425bn), the adjusted collections by PPL and VPL (+18.9% to £0.079bn), the estimated inter-company B2B revenues (+7.2% to £0.218bn), the publishers’ direct revenues excluding income streams from PRS for Music (+0,6% to £0.242bn) and advertising and sponsorship revenue (+4.2% to £0.094bn).